Make It Weird, home

Notes for teachers and parents

Make It Weird is a write-in workbook for 13 to 17 year olds: 28 short chapters, one a day, each with a challenge, one technique, a retest and a score to record. These notes explain how it works, how to use it with a class, what the research behind it says and where it stops, and how parents can help.

How the book works

Each chapter takes about five minutes to read and five to ten more with a pencil. The book suggests one a day. Every chapter follows the same six steps:

  1. Challenge. A task tried cold, ending in a score.
  2. The trick. One technique, taught through one absurd worked example.
  3. Your turn. Using it on schoolwork and in everyday life.
  4. Retest. The same kind of task again, with a new score.
  5. Scrib says. Scrib, a doodle in the margin, voices the reader's doubts, and the book answers honestly.
  6. Come back. A short prompt to recall the chapter later.

Readers write every score in the Score Tracker at the back. In the book's words: "Nobody marks it but you."

Some chapters need a wait. Chapter 2 only works the day after Chapter 1, because it measures what survived overnight. Chapter 14 comes a day or two after Chapter 13. The book says when to wait.

What readers need. A pencil, a timer and a postcard to cover things up. Later, some scraps of card and a pen in a second colour. And three balls, or rolled-up socks.

Why the balls. Juggling runs through the book as a skill readers can watch themselves learn. It starts with one ball in Chapter 2, adds a step at the end of each pillar, and reaches three balls in Chapter 27. The book uses it to show that practice changes the brain and that progress comes in jumps. It doesn't claim juggling makes anyone better at learning.

The four pillars. After two opening chapters, the book has four parts: Remember (memory techniques), Make it stick (testing, spacing, mixing, focus and sleep), Understand (meaning, notes, maps, teaching and reading) and Use it (revision plans, exams and keeping it going). The full chapter list is further down.

Using it with a class

These are suggestions, not research findings.

  • A chapter fits in about fifteen minutes, so it works as a lesson starter or as homework.
  • Keep the day gaps. If Chapter 2 runs on the same day as Chapter 1, the overnight test means nothing.
  • Keep scores private. The Score Tracker is for each pupil's own progress, so never compare scores between pupils.
  • When a pupil's rows run out, the templates page has fresh copies in A4 and US Letter.
  • Each chapter's "Scrib says" objection makes a good discussion prompt. Does the book's answer convince the class?
  • The "Exam tip" boxes use UK exam vocabulary. International schools can skip them, and everything else works anywhere.

What the evidence says

The book quotes research and states each study's limits. Here is the short version. Every item links to the full entry on the sources page.

Stories

Students who linked words into a story later recalled 93% of them, against 13% for those who didn't. Straight after learning, both groups recalled the same, and the study was small (Bower and Clark, 1969). Source: stories

Testing yourself

Pulling facts out of your head beats rereading a few days later, even though rereading wins on a test five minutes later. The key study used university students reading prose passages (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006). A 2013 review of ten study methods by Dunlosky and colleagues put testing yourself and spacing at the top. Source: testing · Source: the ranking of study methods

Spacing

Spreading study out beat cramming it together across a review of 317 experiments, all on recalling words and facts (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006). Source: spacing

Mixing

Mixing problem types made practice harder but results a week later better, in a study with 18 students (Rohrer and Taylor, 2007). Source: mixing

Memory palaces

Beginners who trained for 40 half-hour sessions over six weeks remembered far more words, and the gains held four months later. All the trainees were young men (Dresler and colleagues, 2017). Source: memory palaces

Sleep

The book's sleep advice rests on a review, a diary study in which students reported on themselves, and an expert panel's recommendation, not on one experiment. It gives no medical advice. Source: sleep

Phones

In a 2017 experiment by Ward and colleagues, students did better on thinking tests with their silenced phones in another room than on the desk. A repeat in 2022 found no effect, and a pooled analysis in 2023 found a small one, so the book tells readers to test it on themselves. Source: phones

Where the evidence is thin

The number code for memorising digits has no good classroom study behind it, only long use by memory competitors. The handwriting advantage for notes was not reliably found again when other teams repeated the study. The book says both. Source: the number code · Source: notes

Myths the book takes on

Five short "Myth check" boxes take on popular claims that the evidence doesn't support:

  • learning styles, the idea that matching lessons to a "visual" or "auditory" learner helps (Chapter 3);
  • left-brained and right-brained people (Chapter 21);
  • the idea that we only use 10% of our brains (Chapter 2);
  • multitasking (Chapter 17);
  • speed reading at 1,000 words a minute with nothing lost (Chapter 23).

The book applies the same test to its own claims. It uses juggling only to show that practice changes the brain and that progress comes in jumps, and puts no number on it. It promises no grade. Source: the myth checks

For parents

The Score Tracker belongs to your child, and the book tells them nobody else marks it. Ask what they learned rather than checking the scores. Or let them teach you a chapter: explaining is one of the techniques in the book.

Leave the waiting in. A few chapters only work after a night's sleep. A whole book in one sitting is cramming, which the book argues against.

This is a book about study habits. It gives no medical advice, and its advice on sleep and stress is general. If you're worried about your child's sleep or wellbeing, talk to their school or a doctor.

This website collects nothing about your child. It has no accounts, forms, cookies or tracking, and the privacy notice has the details.

The 28 chapters

Start here

  1. Your first win
  2. Why you forget

Pillar 1: Remember

  1. Make it weird
  2. Picture the unpicturable
  3. Story chains
  4. Pegs
  5. Memory palace: your first route
  6. Memory palace: school edition
  7. The number code
  8. A hundred pegs
  9. Names and faces
  10. Words in other languages

Pillar 2: Make it stick

  1. The rereading trap
  2. Test yourself
  3. Space it out
  4. Mix it up
  5. Focus
  6. Sleep, breaks and moving

Pillar 3: Understand

  1. Memory needs meaning
  2. Notes that work
  3. Mind maps
  4. Teach it
  5. Read smarter

Pillar 4: Use it

  1. Build your revision plan
  2. Exam day
  3. Speak without notes
  4. Real life
  5. Keep going

Get in touch

Questions, or ideas for the next version? Email info.belovedwebsites@gmail.com.

This site was built by Beloved Websites, a small UK web studio.